Valient Viewers of Braver Homes and Gardens

Thursday, January 23, 2014

When I was pregnant with the Sprout, my sister gave me her old Boppy. This pillow made it through her three babies and my little Sprout. I love this pillow and it's still in great shape! But I decided that it really needed some freshening up before baby number 2 comes along. The recover was very easy to do and took less than an hour!

The cover has a zipper so I just unzipped it and used a seam ripper to remove the zipper in order to reuse on the next cover.

I had "owls" as my baby shower theme and my mother-in-law spied this piece of fabric. She bought a yard, ended up not having a use for it, and gave it to me. The one-yard piece was just the right amount to recover the boppy!

Using the seam ripper, also rip out the band at the inner curve of the boppy.

I laid the old boppy fabric on top of the new and used it as my pattern to cut out the top and bottom.

And this is the part where I got in the sewing groove and forgot to take pictures so I'm going to do my best to describe what I did. Put your new top and bottom right sides together. Using your old cover as a guideline, mark where the zipper went with pins and baste shut between your pins. Sew the new zipper in following the manufacturer's directions.

Remove the basting.

Use the old band piece as a pattern to cut out the new band piece (you only need one). Make sure you cut it on the bias/diagonal as shown otherwise the fabric won't stretch into the curve the way you'll need it to.

Use the fold lines from the old band to help create the folds on the ends of the new band and pin it, right sides together, to the new top and bottom. Sew it into place. I used only a 1/2" seam for this part.

Pin the remainder of the top and bottom together and stitch the rest of the boppy closed. Work the zipper to open it and flip it all right sides out. Put your new cover on and admire your handy work!.

Now, if you used your pillow on your own baby, reminisce.

Here's the Sprout at 1 month old in the old Boppy:

Sniff, sniff! NOW here he is at 8 months in the new Boppy, keeping it warm for his new sibling on the way:

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

I've read so many great posts from bloggers who have chosen a word or phrase as their motto for 2014. The Conductor and I did this last year and really liked it. We found that it was so much more realistic to choose a mindset rather than a (typically) unattainable goal. Last year mine was "Organize" and I did a ton of organizing and developing good routines for our household. The Conductor's was "Waste Not Want Not" and with that in mind, and with me organizing much more, we were able to make better use of space and better use of our resources.

This year, his word is "Learning" because he wants to make an effort to learn new skills, especially ones that will allow us to be more self-sufficient.

Here he is teaching himself computer programming. Wow!

My mantra for 2014 is "Plan Ahead". Working full time with an 8-month old at home seriously limits my time and energy and I've found myself slacking off on the chores, cooking healthy meals, and my hobbies just from lack of planning. And I've wasted so much precious free time just from having no plan, or from not having supplies on hand or a schedule set.

And I need to get into the habit of planning ahead because my time and energy will be even MORE limited before too long...

Yep. I am expecting AGAIN. Number 2 is actually due on the Sprout's 1st Birthday in May! Couldn't've planned that better if I tried!

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About Me

I love sewing, cooking, gardening, fixing stuff, and generally being a Jill of all Trades. It takes bravery to be a homeowner, a doer, and a dabbler. Together with my husband, the Conductor, I'm raising our Sprout and the Deuce and we're bravely running our home and garden.
I blog for fun and not profit so my posts are short on the tutorial tone. But if you have any questions about my projects, email me at mygreendoor@aol.com and I'd be happy to help you be brave, too!